POLICE EMPLOYMENT AND SUBURBAN CRIME

Although politicians, police, and others have often advocated the expansion of police employment in the effort to control crime, the empirical relationship between police employment and crime rates has seldom been systematically explored. This study incorporates variables which are causally related both to crime and police employment roles for the 252 northern and northeastern suburbs for which police employment and crime data are available for 1970–1972. Separate analyses of violent and property crime are undertaken, incorporating data on police employment as a causally related variable along with several other determinants of crime identified in earlier studies. The analysis suggests that police employment and crime rates are reciprocally related, and that these relationships offer more support for a “labeling” than a “deterrence” perspective.     

The analysis of casework sized alloy fragments by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) using discrete nebulisation

A discrete nebulisation technique has been developed for the multi-element analysis of 100-μl solution droplets by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The technique increases analytical speed and uses very small solution volumes with only a slight degradation in detection limits when compared to continuous solution introduction.To evaluate its suitability in casework, small alloy fragments were produced by cutting with a hacksaw, sample division and filing. The analysis of fragments from two different brasses indicated that quantitative data could be obtained from fragments as small as 10 μg. The accurate determination of lead, a non-homogeneous constituent of leaded brasses, required sample sizes an order of magnitude greater. Analysis of an alloy of fine grain structure (copper-nickel) demonstrated that quantitative data could be obtained from samples weighing a few micrograms or less.     

Patterns of offending in urban and rural areas

Although the level of crime varies dramatically across the urban-rural dimension, little research has been directed at the issue of the patterns of offending across this dimension. Using National Crime Survey (NCS) victimization data, this paper examines to what extent the patterns of offending by particular age, race, and sex subgroups are similar in urban and rural areas. It was found that the patterns of age, race, and sex offending are essentially the same in both urban and rural areas. Particularly impressive is the consistency in the rankings (from high to low) of the propensity of offending in urban and rural areas when age, race, and sex were examined simultaneously. Also, these NCS data generally parallel Uniform Crime Reports arrest data with respect to the offender characteristics of age, race, and sex. This suggests that existing criminological theories can be applied to rural, as well as urban, crime patterns regarding the issue of offender characteristics.